Posts by Timbo

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Re: UK Charging points

The Morrisons at Wolstanton near Stoke on Trent had a great idea - you filled up with fuel and then drove to the exit of the filling station where there was a booth and you paid for the fuel without leaving the car.

But I think the bean counters didn't like this so they re-developed the entire place and then built a "normal" mini-shop, which means to have to wait until previous customers have walked to the shop, taken a look around, buy a few items and then pay for their fuel and walk back.

There's an Esso petrol station on the A14 at Rothwell, where you can fill up, then just drive forwards into a parking bay in front of the shop, thereby making space for someone else. If all petrol stations were like this, it would help speed things up. (IMHO).

Basically the Soyuz can catch up with the ISS within 4 orbits so about 6 hours from launch to docking. It requires the ISS to move a little (in its orbit) plus the Soyuz mission controllers need to do their bit too, as do the cosmonauts/astronauts.

So, it can be done so why it's not done regularly is why I'm still stumped !!

It still amazes me that it can take nearly 2 days to fly, in a space rocket, up into space approx 250 miles.

Of course the ISS is in orbit, travelling at a good few thousand miles an hour so the Soyuz takes time to get up to speed and then catch up.

But I've seen that the Russians have previously taken a "quicker" route in the recent past....so I wonder why they don't do that more often?

Plus "2 days" in a cramped Soyuz, with little space (sic) to move around inside?....one wonders about DVT plus how do they manage "toilet breaks" with a woman on board? Maybe a few diapers placed inside the space suits?

Actually I have a 32" Samsung LCD monitor and if the DVI cable (from the PC) "somehow" becomes detached (even though DVI plugs have thumbscrews to hold them in place), I get pretty much the same message along with a huge black border taking up the rest of the screen.....

Re: Don't look to the past

I find my rocket-powered paperweights to be very good...as very shortly after deploying them on a new set of paper invoices and despatch notes they all disappear leaving behind just some black and charred remnants...it certainly makes book keeping very easy as there's nothing to input ;-)

However, my accountant is insisting I downgrade to ice paperweights, which makes the ink run but the paper still looks like paper, and hence he can embellish our accounts a little more thoughtfully, when submitting our annual nett loss to Companies House ;-)

Re: 234

"Perhaps a Federation of Planets all using the same signal method as a way to attract the attention of other civilisations? I've heard dafter things."

But 234 of them all pointing at Earth ??

I can imagine maybe pointing in 234 different directions...

Or maybe there are thousands of these "light sources" pointing in multiple different directions and it just so happens that 234 of them, just by chance, point our way. :-)

Unless of course they have been monitoring our radio signals since the first Marconi broadcast and decided to focus on our Solar System?

So, say Marconi's first radio transmission was c1900 (give or take) then if aliens were listening out for us, those (v. weak) signals could be picked up say approx 115 light years away. But for a acknowledgement signal to come back then the senders can't be further than (say) 60 LY's away.

If these 234 star "signals" are coming from stars further away than 60LY, then we can be pretty sure they are not focussing on us :-)

Internet access?

Do all the HQ's PC's have to log into this "compromised" server, to then allow them access to the outside world?

I'd have thought they would just be able to start up their PC's, find that a "network server" isn't available (because <hopefully> it's been quarantined and taken offline) and they'd still be able to access the 'net.

Or is simple me, missing something that happens in "big corporate/charity land"? Maybe this server was also their firewall/access point/etc etc?

Diamonds are forever ?

I'm simply reminded of the laser weapon that was bedecked with diamonds and was put into space and started destroying various weapons....shame Blofeld was put out of business...he could have won this contract !!

ehh ??

"collecting and sharing such information on users under the age of 13 is a violation of COPPA."

So, collecting the data is illegal ?

"Under the terms of the settlements, the companies will all agree to place additional oversight on their third-party advertisers, including regular scans to monitor how advertisers are collecting data and background checks for ad partners.

The sites will also be required to keep detailed accounts of how data is collected and provide that information to parents upon request."

and apart from a small fine, they are going to be allowed to continue "collecting data" - though they need to document what they collect.

So, having been found guilty of collecting data illegally, they are allowed to carry on ? If it was me, I'd have shut down the servers collecting the data as well as banning the sale of the "toys" that were "collecting data". That'll teach 'em !!

Re: quality..

"The chain is only as strong as it's weakest link - a fancy power lead won't change your house wiring or the distribution grid. In some cases the meat bag's own sensors are the limiting aspect."

Actually, many "fancy power leads" are shielded...which does two things:

It prevents the magnetic/electrical field that is around the power lead (when actually providing voltage and current) from having an effect on OTHER speaker, power and interconnect cables in/around the back panels of the hi-fi system...esp if higher currents are being drawn, which leads to higher levels of induced signals in other nearby cables...and esp those that are not well shielded (if at all).

And it prevents other cables from inducing "noise" into the "fancy power lead" too...

Of course, there are all manner of ways in which interference can be induced into other nearby products...but there are ways of reducing/minimising this by careful product design.

The trouble is that some brands do seem to have marketing depts who have Ph.D's in snake oil theories...which then makes it look like EVERY "upgrade" solution is "suspect", when in fact some very simple (and not expensive) products can bring about noticeable improvements.

I'm still quite amazed at human kinds ability to actually manufacture such significant numbers of a highly technical product, in such a short space of time (the above numbers relate to fiscal quarters...

I can understand it with "simple items" say Mars bars, or packets of corn flakes, etc...but it's indeed a "good business" for anyone when they make 50 million of anything in just a few months !!

Re: Lots of road containers.

"Send em up one at a time and just lego them together into a big sphere and eventually it will be safe to live in the middle."

On a similar vein, why not re-design the 2nd stage boosters (which normally just burn up in the atmos once they are "used") and collect them together in orbit, join them up and re-use them/recycle them.

It might take a bit of re-imagining how these boosters are designed so they could be "dual use" (ir as boosters and then as storage/habitats/raw materials but they could be re-used post-launch, and it would be a start.

Re: Once upon a time detector vans existed

"So detector vans do not exist and haven't for decades. Instead there is a team of people sending out letters and knocking on doors."

I would tend to agree with you...

BUT, there are surely enough El Reg members who have smart phones and who live in the UK to able to grab a photo of one of these vans...after all, it wasn't that long ago, that some people took to taking pics of Google's Streetview Opel Astra's driving around.

So, why not see if we can spot some TVL vans - esp as I'd love to see the twigs on it !!

"Maybe trying to land on a floating deck which is moving about all over the place - despite thrusters and stabilizers etc - is just a step too far."

Why can't they just rent a bit of land somewhere remote-ish, paint a nice target ring on it and land it on terra firma.

I know some govt depts don't like the idea of space rockets, partly filled with rocket fuel, landing in peoples back yards, but surely Mr Musk has got deep enough pockets to buy a bit of ground somewhere ?

Re: Home Server

As long as the company producing the End of Lifed IoT device is forced (by legislation) to make their server software Open Source, then this surely would help prevent said devices ending up in landfill, or on a boat to Asia to be "recycled" (or put in landfill "out of sight over there !!).

A few years ago, Cobalt made some nice little 1U webservers, which worked really well...then they got bought by Sun and then said servers were discontinued...but at least Sun released to Open Source, the code for the servers and hence StrongBolt and Blue Quartz (and others) came about which extended the life of these products considerably. :-)

Surely, this should have happened?

Cameron supported Remain and when Leave won the referendum, so he quit.

And now we will have another Remain supporter as PM who surely should have resigned as well...along with all the other Govt Remain supporters.

Then, the opposition party members who supported Remain should have quit and then we could have had a nice General Election and fill the Houses of Parliament with people who want to Leave.

(Unless of course the electorate have changed their mind in the meantime).

This would then have been fair and everyone would then have had a say in who was the new PM...not some crazy scheme where a limited number of Tories supported one candidate and everyone else either got a handful of votes or else they stood down.

Cost?

OK, so an OWL Stereoscopic viewer is £15 + £4.50 p&p.

But an OWL Virtual Reality Kit, which is the above viewer plus what looks like a thin flat magnetic sheet (aka "Holding Plate") and a thin piece of metal with double sided tape you stick to the back of your phone is £25 + £7 p&p...

Evidence:

The former:

http://www.londonstereo.com/shop_home3.html

The latter:

http://www.londonstereo.com/vr-kit.html

Oh, and one is in grey and the other is in red...maybe that's the reason !!

Re: 10Mbps?

There's a link on El Reg which talks about the Queens Speech from 2009, where Gordon Brown was talking about ensuring 2Mbps being the minimum for broadband...and now, 7 years later, they are talking about 10Mbps by 2020....jeez.

I think some of these politicians and civil servants need to be dragged into the 21st century, as in some countries, 100Mb is the norm NOW (and has been for a while). God help us when they get Gb connectivity and we are still reliant on tins cans and wet string to make a connection. BT/Openreach needs to be given the boot and let's have some upto date technology providers to rejig the system.

Re: Guidelines - credit to SpaceX...

"Shedding the panels should result in fuel savings as well, right? No clue how much mass we're talking about, or how much fuel savings. I'd imagine that the vast majority is spent in the early stages of a launch, but still..."

One can't shed the panels too soon, as they are used to help the initial launch phase where the "air wall" in front of the rocket is very large.

Rockets go from 0-400 km/h within 30 secs and reach 1000 km/h within 60 secs, 2000 km/h after 90s and by 2 mins are at 4000 km/h. After 150 sec, 7000 km/h would be reached and at approx 3 mins, the fairings are dispensed with, by which time 8500 km/h would have been reached.

Without the fairings all that "air wall" pressure would damage the payload section* of the rocket.

Re: Another abort?

Re: Memorial...

"Plus several round the clock guards, as the statue would be worth around $60 million!"

Raw materials "worth" maybe...but get Damien Hirst to design it, Banksy to paint it, Tracey Emin to add some decorative features and Ai Weiwei to give it his approval and we might be talking a whole lot more...

Do it right and you can stop selling idevices and instead sell replica SJ "statuettes"...you could even approach A.M.P.A.S and sponsor the Oscars by providing "Steves" instead...in fact sponsor EVERY major awards ceremony for "luvvies" and they can all have "Steves"... :)

Re: Or dark matter is other universes

"The accelerating-expanding universe is explained (galaxies are expanding out at an accelerating rate, faster than the speed of light and out-run their own light to become invisible)..."

I've heard this idea before, but what I don't understand is this:

a) I thought that "nothing can travel faster than light" is a basic rule of science ? Even if it's only the "edge" of the galaxy, that would still have mass ? Or are we talking about the "galaxy" as having a theoretical "volume" and it's this volume that is expanding (while the stars within the galaxy are expanding outwards, but not at quite the same rate ?)

And b) if an entire galaxy is accelerating out, where is it getting it's energy from to do this ?

Lastly, c) if the galaxies that are expanding outwards so quickly, since the Big Bang, and they are moving away from us, there must be huge numbers of them that we cannot see or detect, as light and other tell-tale signs that travel at the speed of light (or less), will never reach us. So how do we know they are there ?

"We'll be able to get a lot closer look in about four billion years' time, at which point the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our Milky Way and merge into a new super-galaxy."

Is this a coincidence?, as in approx 4 billions years time, our Sun will apparently swallow up Earth and then collapse and ruminate on what's it's consumed. Maybe merging with Andromeda will provide Sol with some dessert to feast on ;-)

Re: Anyone feel a pulp scifi novel coming on?

Mmmmmmmmm...

If you watch the video at the end of the article, I just love the sound from Michele Bannister, just after she is introduced (about 45 seconds in), when she does a quite loud "mmmmmmmmmm" before her presentation - maybe she fancies the chap who introduced her ??

Re: designed to slurp less power..

"Should have made it an SSD then."

TBH, a quick look on fleabay will reveal plenty of small-ish (8Gb or so) capacity SATA SSD's for around 2 cups of Costa's finest coffee - I got a couple a few days ago and they are doing very nicely :)

Re: DAB would have some great potential if you get propper equipment

"But remember the Pure Bug radio? It was, to my knowledge, the only one that came close to the promises with ability to record. I don't know why."

Not quite - PURE also made the Evoke-3 which, like the Bug, paused or recorded live radio DAB (or it would allow "time-shifting", via it's built in timer) to an SD card.

Evoke-3 had a lot going for it - big display, mains/battery operation, DAB/FM operation, stereo speakers with good audio, plus aux input and Toslink output....plus it didn't look like a ugly plastic lump. PS The Bug was designed by one Wayne Hemmingway :(

I doubt record execs would have an issue with recordings made off DAB, given the low data rates and in some cases, mono output of some stations....so, a 64kb or 80kb mono MP2 recording of the latest and greatest "popular" record is hardly going to cause issues, when so much is available on Youtube, which given the right piece of software on your PC can easily be downloaded onto PC.

Re: So, if i may ask..

"How about DRM cd's dvd etc."

I think this only covers music and CD's....

As far as DVD goes, there's a different "set" of media companies' interests at stake, namely Hollywood and the film studios.

Most (music) albums might only cost a small number (or even fractions) of millions to create, market and produce - so their "losses" to "home taping" are relatively minor. However, studios can spend hundreds of millions of dollars/pounds etc to do a similar job, so "copying" said movies causes a lot more consternation and as such, it's less likely that they will be appeased by said ruling(s).

The technology does exist for individuals to "copy" DVD's and convert said files into MKV (or similar) files that can be watched on various devices (and without needing the original media)....so, at some point some scheme needs to be thought of, to ensure that film companies can be reimbursed with some form of compensation.....but don't hold your breath !!

Re: Very good, but...

"Why would musicians need compensating for format shifting in the first place... what's the original reason for that? "

I think that the original reason comes from "way back when", when there were two sources of music - LP's and tape (either reel to reel, cassette, or even 8-track).

As such, the musicians and record companies expected people to buy TWO copies of any specific song or album, assuming you wanted to play said music at home or in the car and you didn't want to buy a record player for the car or a tape deck for home...

For most people it was never an issue as pre-recorded cassette and 8-tracks sounded dire.

But then higher quality hardware came along and you could then record the LP you bought onto a high quality blank take (which usually sounded better that the fast-duplicated tapes available for sale). Or you record certain favorite songs and make up a mix-tape you could share with friends...so they then didn't have to buy said music at all.

The music industry didn't like this and hence campaigned for blank media to be taxed somehow and for musicians to be given this extra money.

The "battle" has been raging since the mid-1970s....and it would be nice if it came to an conclusion now.

Re: Can't still buy it new, but still the best

"It's still my phone, and I'll never upgrade until it breaks down."

Ditto.....my only gripe about my S 11 is that it works so well that I'm scared of bricking it, by getting it rooted and updated with a more recent version of Android or one of the other versions (eg: CyanogenMod).

But the good news is that you can pick up "looked after" s/h S 11's for not a lot...I got a 16Mb in White for £35 so, I have a spare "just in case" (and I back up my usual phone so I can restore onto the spare if I need to).

Re: exponents....

"Doesn't it make you feel humanity is so very small...?."

Without getting too religious....

oh, alright then....

At the risk of upsetting some people...you'd have thought if God was really THAT great, he'd have created a bigger world for us to reside on, with far more raw materials than we could ever need, in a "Solar System" populated with a bigger Sun and more planets...

Instead, we've got a Sun which always seems to be smaller and less bright than any other "interesting star" that astronomers find. And we don't seem to have too many "interesting bodies" nearby either, aside for (probably) a Black Hole at the centre of our Galaxy.

Some nice binary pulsars nearby would have been good....Stargazing Live announced a new one tonight, spinning at 30 times a second, weighing (approx) a thousand, million, million, million tons (IIRC)...but it's a long, long, long way away (in the constellation of Cygnus, apparently).

Re: licensing the brand

"Currently, ASDA have the rights to the Polaroid brand in the UK for audiovisual equipment. Don't know how long *that* deal will last, but it puts it on the level of Technika and Matsui."

I bought a quite cheap Polaroid branded Bluetooth external speaker from ASDA, as I was interested on something portable that I could use as a hands-free kit. I'd seen Jawbone products, but they were more expensive than I wanted to pay.

I didn't know Polaroid was a licensed brand so I guess I was a little "hoodwinked" into thinking it was a quality brand...hence why they want to sell the Memorex brand - as some people will recognise the brand name and make a purchase as a result. Having said that, the item I got works as well as I need so, no problems there.

And let's be honest - it's a lot cheaper (in marketing terms) to buy an "off the shelf" brand name, than to come up with a NEW name and get it "recognised" around the world.